Friday, 13 January 2012

okay, look. i don't expect perfection in writing online. most writing online these days is blogging by amateurs who have not made their living writing and editing, and i can forgive a lot of errors there (not to say that they don't still bug the shit out of me, but you know: i can hold my tongue).

but when articles written by professional journalists, edited by professional editors, and published by major publishers contain multiple glaring silly errors, i get a little stabbity.

tonight, we are watching our usual first round of news, the pbs newshour. there was a story that mentioned the office of the u.s. trade representative (USTR), and i worked there back in the mid-1990s, so i was curious and googled USTR and limited results to the past 24 hours. and i found a story on business week, published by bloomberg. and i couldn't even assess the reporting because my eye was twitching so much from the grade school–level errors. so i downloaded adobe reader, pdf'd the article, and marked the errors. (here, if you're curious.) because yes, that is what i have going on on a friday night. that's just how i roll, yo.

i sort of petered out at the end of my 30-day thing. no idea why. but today i'm formatting a document, work that is exactly right for playing music while i do it. i have my ipod on shuffle, and it is presenting me with some awesome songs.

when you're sad, "smile." i really love this version by american idol contestant gina glocksen.

when you're mad at your guy, "strut" by sheena easton:

i know! but there it was in my shuffle.

edited to add another one that's good if you're pissed at your partner (fortunately, this is very rare for me):

when this came on, i stopped it shuffling so i could listen to the rest of the album it's on--not sarah's but an album that nobody should be surprised i own, "mad about you (music from and inspired by the television series)." i love everything about this show except that it's no longer on the air. :snif: this album also has some beautiful dialog clips, which is as much of a fix as i get any more.

jamie: "i just don't know why this is all so hard!"

paul: "what?"

j: "this! everything! marriage! it's supposed to be different than this."